Over at the Pink Pigtail Inn I expressed some sympathy for players who are going for Insane in the Membrane but who are suddenly informed that it's going to be gone very very soon. Perhaps too soon. But after my post I'm having some second thoughts.

For the most part WoW isn't a particularly exclusive game. By that I mean, what you have doesn't deny me the same. We all get the badges and reputation. Gold, shards, and all manner of trade materials are plentiful enough that the nodes that I get before you don't deny you all ore, because there are a hundred more nodes that we've not gotten to yet. Even quest mobs will respawn soon enough. Bosses are mostly in instances where each raid gets its own, so there's not really such thing as a "kill steal".

There are a few exceptions to this lack of exclusivity, such as certain extremely rare materials and raid-based quests. For example, not everyone can get Shdaowmourne because there just aren't enough shards and for many guilds, possibly not even enough raid resets. Or not everyone can get the old legendaries since eyes of sulfuron and bindings of the windseeker and extremely rare and they cannot be farmed endlessly; so luck will deny some. Sulfuron ingots and elementium ore may claim more victims. But this isn't about those feats of strength. Instead there are the pristine black diamonds; an exceptionally rare drop in the late vanilla range; something of which you may only see a few in your entire time playing, far less if you're skipping late vanilla content like most players. These place a very clear limit on the number of players who can complete Insane in the Membrane. Gold cannot make more appear, at least not in any reasonable quantity, since farming them would mean literally just grinding instances for hours with possibly no results. The result is that in the remaining month, very few players will get the diamonds they need.

Should we feel sorry for them? I certainly think so. It's a horrible feeling. I can say I share it, as I was more than a little bit concerned that Kingslayer might vanish in 4.0, though thankfully it was not. But that sense of extreme rush is not a pleasant one.

But should it be any different? Not everyone can be insane and I don't think everyone should. Not everyone would even if they could, merely due to lack of interest. But on top of that there is the rarity, the RNG which dictates how many there will be. Is that good? I didn't think so with the Hallowed or Love Fool; the RNG shouldn't arbitrarily deny people that which they for which would otherwise be fully capable and willing. And yet...

I have a Scepter of the Shifting Sands. It will never work, because every gate is open. I will never be able to ring the gong. I performed the task of grinding reputation and gathering materials and dealing with various insane dragons and one extremely dangerous minnow. Why should I not be able to be a Scarab Lord?

Because I was too late. It's a sad, unfair, frustrating reason, but that's that: I was too late. And soon, the partially insane may also be too late. That's just how it is.

And yet, I still cannot understand why there is not simply a new hostile pirate group? Maybe another expansion of insanity would be too long. Maybe that spreads it out too far, makes it less of a grind, would flood the cities with Insanes. I could be a cold-hearted asshole and ask why they needed more than two years to do it. But I wasn't the first insane on my server, so clearly I'm the slow one too. I wasn't the first Bloodsail Admiral all those years back either. So I guess how slow is too slow? Six months ago was not too slow. One month from now is too slow. I guess that's where the dart landed on the timeline.

But insanity isn't a title anyway. It's a lifestyle. I was a Bloodsail before I could be a Bloodsail Admiral. I wear silly hats. I tanked Arthas with Thunderfury last night, and it worked. I'm the official story-teller in my guild, responsible for the three voices needed for Uther to inform Arthas that he was glad to make it. I've received compliments on my Jaina voice.

To my fellow insane, to my future insane brethren, let us ask, let us ask the questions that no one else is asking. How does mental disease magically stop spreading? How? Mind control. Don't you see? Hitler, Stalin, Blizzard. They all wanted to tell you what and how to think. First they're going to come for the people who didn't even start the Bloodsail grind and we'll say nothing because we're farming Dire Maul. Then they'll come for the people who are working on goblin rep and we'll say nothing because we're searching for blood of heroes. They'll come for the people turning in their last few librams as the servers go down. And finally they'll come for us and there will be no one to speak for us because everyone will be a damn Kingslayer.

Am I the only one saying that putting a time limit on achievements means that Blizzard is going to mind-control players? Am I just crazy or... yes.

Tomorrow: The Butchers of Maraudon: How Blizzard is destroying Azeroth.

For further reading, here's an insightful take on the gathering of titles or other 'cosmetic' additions to a player's WoW persona.

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comments:

Again: I don't think it's wrong to remove the possibility to gain titles or feats of strenght after a certain time. But it's wrong to make promises and statements that will be considered the truth for an entire year and then change your position in the last minute, when it's too late for the players to reschedule their plans.

Double posting my comment here and on Larisa'a page(since the posts are related). Sorry for the wall of text.

Going to have to say that, and of course this is strictly my opinion, but the vast majority of players QQing about this achievement had no real intention to ever complete it. Sure it sounded like a cool achievement at the time, and they may have "made plans" to do it, but not many were going to actually go through with it. I saw many MANY people start it and give up within a couple days. We would all talk and BS in the Dire Maul general channel to make the time go by faster but most were broken by the grind and gave up quickly.

The people who told themselves they would complete this in cata (because of a blue post...yeah right, b/c blizz never changes their minds), were only lying to themselves. There will be too much to do already with new content coming out. ICC has been out for nearly a YEAR, with the only new raid content being RS since then, I would think that people would be bored and doing those achievements that they "wanted" to do. Instead they spend their time raging on the forums about being bored, and threatening to quit the game. I feel no pity for the people who kept putting it off, because they weren't going to actually do it, and would find reasons not to if blizz put it back in. The only people i feel pity for are those who were ACTIVELY working towards the achievement BEFORE the announcement was recently made, but hopefully they are far enough along they can complete it in time.

@Larisa do you honestly believe that people made plans a year ago based on that blue post, to complete it when cataclysm is released? Maybe i'm too cynical, but procrastinators have a habit of procrastinating...and sometimes it is too late.

@Lucidshadow: I've been working towards this casually for more than a couple of months. Got my Darkmoon and Ravenholdt reps to the maximum I can on my main without having to do deck/junk box turn-ins. Goblin reps are already maxed out via Dire Maul runs, which has netted me about 1/4 of the librams I'd eventually need. There's a stack of shards in the bank on my enchanted, stockpiled against the day when I'd start libram turn-ins. I was going to start working on Bloodsail rep next week, while the bruisers were still lower-level.

I took it easy because... well, no worry, right? Getting "the Insane" would still be possible (maybe more difficult, but at least possible) after Cataclysm was released. So instead of doing nothing but work on the achievement, I've interspersed it with a lot of other achievement hounding I've wanted to get accomplished, intentioally leaving IITM for Cataclysm.

Why? I don't currently have a rogue, or a scribe... so my plan was to kill several birds with one stone, and level a Worgen rogue as an herbalist/scribe. I get to try the new race, I get to experience the new low-level content, and I eventually have a character that I can farm junk boxes with and use to produce cards for my main.

*Shrug*.

No QQ, just pointing out that doing IITM "casually", at least for me, made sense - and that the pace I went at really had nothing to do with whether or not I was going to complete it. I'm sure there are others in the same boat. I'd like it if Blizzard made it possible to complete, even in Cataclysm, but it's not going to crush my world.

You are one of the few I can feel bad for, for not being able to complete this in time. Casually or not, you have been working on it for a couple of months and got caught by the change, and lack of the public being given the information sooner.

While you are right there are bound to be a few out there, like yourself, with the short end of the stick. I still believe the vast majority of the complaints about the change are coming from people who would be complaining about something else if this wasn't such a convenient target at the moment...and a smaller chunk of people who thought they would do it, but actually dont have the tenacity to see it through.

You are one of the VERY FEW who are actually hit by this change. That sucks.

Been working on it for a couple of months now... Did Bloodsail rep first, Revered with Darkmoon Faire, did the initial grinding for Ravehold, have 100 Pristine Black Diamonds, and 10 Librams and was planning to start on the DM runs soon.... alas.. questgiver in there is gone, so no Shendralar rep for me.

@Lucidshadow: "I still believe the vast majority of the complaints about the change are coming from people who would be complaining about something else if this wasn't such a convenient target at the moment..."

A good point, and... wow. You've managed to pretty much sum up the general reaction to *all* changes - past, present, and future - in that one comment :-)